Fred MacAulay

Shows

The Best Show in the World... Probably (team captain)

Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment (team captain)

Caledonia MacBrains (team captain)

Celebrity Masterchef (participant)

Comic Relief Does Fame Academy (participant)

A Game of Two Halves (team captain)

I Guess That's Why They Call It the News

Keep It in the Family (2)

The News Quiz (panellist)

Now You See It

Scots on the Box

Your Country Needs You! (team captain)

Biography

Scottish funnyman and radio host who turned to stand-up after finding a career in accountancy a bit boring (and who can blame him?). One of his early breaks was doing the studio warm-up for Have I Got News for You and he hosted the weekday mid-morning show on BBC Radio Scotland from 1997 to 2015.

Trivia

He served as Rector of the University of Dundee (his alma mater) from 2001 to 2004, beating Richard Whiteley in the election. His immediate predecessor in the post was Tony Slattery and his successor was Lorraine Kelly.

For Sport Relief 2010, MacAulay and Deacon Blue drummer turned BBC Scotland sports presenter, Dougie Vipond, rowed the Caledonian Canal from end to end (well, nearly - they had to walk a couple of bits because it froze over) in a two-man kayak named, somewhat to Vipond's chagrin, Dignity.

MacAulay was proud of the fact that, although he is happy to swear in his stand-up, he had never uttered a swear word on his Radio Scotland show... until two weeks before he was due to leave, when he managed to stumble over a report of traffic in Huntly.

In 2015 he appeared in a Scottish TV advert promoting bowel screening. Weirdly, though, he didn't have a big role like doing the voiceover, or even get a close-up, he just made a very brief appearance in a crowd scene. We must have seen it about 20 times before we even noticed he was there.